Both crude benchmarks fell in the overnight session. Brent settled at $109.62/bbl, down 1.01% on the day, while WTI settled at $100.65/bbl, down 1.09%. The near-equal declines pulled the Brent–WTI spread back to $8.97 from the $12 handle seen earlier this month, cooling the premium that U.S. Gulf Coast light crude had been commanding over the North Sea.

For SNSUC's transit book the narrowing spread reorders landed economics. ESPO, Dubai and Oman — the short-haul light-sweet grades we price off Brent — do not get cheaper when WTI softens, but the Brent leg itself dragged the benchmark down roughly $1.1/bbl.

The yuan firmed another notch today, with USD/CNY at 6.669, down 0.11%. Converting at Brent × FX, the RMB landed cost slipped from about ¥739/bbl to ¥731/bbl. The import window stayed open and actually widened about ¥8/bbl versus last week, putting short-haul light-sweet feedstock back at the front of the queue.

On the board the domestic residual chain did not follow crude lower: fuel oil at ¥5,255/t added just 0.32% and bitumen at ¥4,862/t rose 2.62%, leaving independent refiners' crack spreads squeezed between feedstock and product. In rubber, natural rubber fell 1.5% while butadiene rubber rose 0.67%, narrowing the NR–BR premium to ¥2,920.